commatic drift & a psychological sense of closure

I hate to keep on bringing up Mahler in this forum considering
he's off-topic (...OK, I'm lying... I'll use any excuse to
mention Mahler), but I had wanted to say something about a
paritcular aspect of his work and didn't, and now Paul Erlich
has given me reason to do so.

[Paul Erlich, TD 208.6]
>
> I don't have perfect pitch either, but I'm pretty convinced
> that when listening to a piece of music, even a long classical
> one, my mind latches onto the pitch and the key of the opening
> fairly accurately. Although I'm not fully conscious of it when
> it happens, a return to the home key near the end of a piece
> seems to give a psychological sense of closure that I doubt
> could be achieved by ending a whole-tone away from the original
> key. By the way, the same opinion would probably be expressed
> by most theorists who study classical music (such as Schenkerian
> analysts), and by members of Phish.

First of all, let me say that I'm happy to find out that such an
erudite microtonal theorist shares my lack of perfect pitch!

Secondly, in connection with Mahler, much has been made of his
so-called 'progressive tonality': that is, he often begins a
symphony in one key, but concludes its final movement in another,
and the progression of key-centers of the movements as blocks
within his symphonies is often quite bizarre, considering that
Mahler's style is basically diatonic.

Three blatant examples are the _5th_, which opens in C#-minor and
ends in D-major (supposedly a progression from 'darkness' to
'light'), the _7th_, opening in B-minor and ending in C-major
(same idea as the _5th_), and the _9th_, opening in D-major and
ending in D-flat-major (supposedly portraying Mahler's resignation
to impending death).

This all looks good on paper, but I've never heard any of it.

Admittedly, I've never done experiments like retuning entire
movements of Mahler symphonies, but I really think this stuff
is rather far-fetched, especially in view of the scale upon
which Mahler constructed his grandiose works. When one of his
symphonies ends, an hour and 25 minutes after it began, in a
different key, I sure don't notice it.

I think I can give creedence to what you say about an unconscious
perception of the logic of returning to the 'home key', but I
also think that the time-scale upon which drift may happen
plays a part in this unconscious recognition.

Certainly, Schenkerian analysts would agree with what you say,
but I've never placed much stock in Schenker's theories myself.
I think a lot of *it*, too, is far-fetched.

I'd say both of us need to perform some listening experiements
in connection with this before we make any more statements about
it with any intention of conclusiveness.

Joseph L. Monzo monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
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